The risks and challenges of managing wealth in and around family-run businesses are to be explored in a course held at Cambridge University later this year.

Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education, based at the UK’s Cambridge University, has launched a new programme covering issues confronting family-run businesses, such as transfer to new generations, risk management and planning.

The Responsible Family Business and Wealth Ownership Programme, a three-and-a-half-day event, holds its inaugural session in October this year. The course is the brainchild of Cambridge Judge Business School Executive Education, with input of founding advisors Iraj Ispahani and wealth management industry luminary Philip Marcovici (among other roles, he is a member of the WealthBriefing editorial advisory board).

The programme will focus on de-risking and the steps families can take to help ensure that their family, family business and family wealth thrive in uncertain times. For example, families and business owners will be asked how can risk be reduced by taking advantage of the unique opportunities that family resilience offers?

The course aims to tackle the kind of problems in families, such as those where businesses are involved, that can lead to wealth being destroyed over time or where great wealth can cause conflicts and problems. To some extent the phenomenon known as "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" is a reason why family offices came into being to prevent the erosion of wealth and family solidarity over time.

Other questions arising that will be tackled include how to identify and manage risks within the family, the business and the external world, including political and other risk. Another question is how to understand and manage conflicts of interest and the related risks that arise.

“A number of business schools and other providers offer executive and other education oriented to family owned businesses. Many, however, focus on the next generation and on business succession rather than on the ownership and application of more passive wealth, and neglect the importance of each family member being prepared for their specific future role,” the university said in a statement.

A family member not managing the family business needs to be prepared as an effective owner of the family business,  and can be of huge importance in providing support for siblings or others who may be involved in active management. A discretionary beneficiary of a trust needs to understand his or her rights and be in a position to understand enough about the trust and the investments being made to ask the right questions and adequately provide a “check” over the power of third parties, such as trustees and protectors.

The programme director and overall academic sponsor is Dr Khal Soufani, senior faculty in management practice and director of the executive MBA programme at Cambridge Judge, with support from Professor Panikkos Poutziouris and the Dean of Cambridge Judge, Dr Christoph Loch. Allison Wheeler-Heau, director of open Programmes within the executive education unit, and Isabelle Geisthardt, business development director within Executive Education, are closely involved in the design and delivery of the programme.

The majority of teaching will be undertaken by Cambridge faculty, external industry and other experts are involved. The speaker at the first evening’s dinner in October, 2018 is Andy Rubin, chairman of Pentland Brands, who will be sharing his views on how a third generation family business is making itself fit for the future by using family as a competitive advantage. (Pentland Brands owns and operates sports shoe and fashion brands including Speedo, Berghaus, Ellesse and Mitre.) The programme  will also feature Leif Hoegh, the Chairman of Hoegh Capital, who will speak about the hard choices that need to be made to protect families.

In the design and launch of the programme, founding advisors Iraj Ispahani and Philip Marcovici have sought to bring their understanding of the needs of global wealth and business owners to the process. Iraj Ispahani is a graduate of the University of Cambridge, a 10th generation member of a business owning family, a board director of the Ispahani Group in Bangladesh, and the CEO of Ispahani Advisory, a London based firm helping families and family offices, among others, achieve their objectives; Marcovici is a graduate of the law schools of the University of Ottawa and of Harvard University, teaching and consulting globally on issues relevant to wealth planning, international taxation and family business and wealth. The author of The Destructive Power of Family Wealth, Philip is based in Hong Kong. (A review of his book can be found here.)